Anniversary Trip

Yesterday Eric and I celebrated our second anniversary by spending the day at Sea World:

As usual, the first thing we did was buy the "restaurant quality" fish to feed the dolphins.

Then it was time for the surprise that Eric had planned for me a month ago--the Sea Lion Interaction Program! Before we began the sea lion encounter, our guide took us backstage of the Viva show. We had the opportunity to see the playful belugas up close.

After watching a short video about sea lions, it was time to put on our wetsuits. I had never worn a wetsuit before and didn't have a clue how difficult it would be to put on. Aren't they flattering? For some reason I was the only one in our group who ended up with a wetsuit that had a shiny middle section. Lovely. . . .

Finally it was time to get in the water with the sea lion, Elrod! We each had multiple opportunities to interact with Elrod both in the water and on land.

The best part of the interaction was when Elrod gave each of us a ride around the 12 foot deep tank.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Elrod and head back across the park to get out of our wetsuits.

We didn't take many pictures for the remainder of the day. We made it to a few shows and spent the afternoon cooling off at the water park.

I'll leave you with a little video clip of one of the spotlight techs at the Shamu show. Most of his co-workers were standing around looking pretty bored, but this guy sure knew how to keep himself (and me) entertained. Sorry it's pixely; he was up pretty high.